The Senior "Bag Brigade" (church volunteers who run the monthly food drive; there is also a Junior Bag Brigade that takes in the donated food on the first Sunday of each month) poses with "Souper Bowl of Caring" soup pyramid after sorting and bagging the rest of their donated food on Feb. 4th.

Sunnyvale Pres.'s Monthly Food drive has collected

45 TONS of food!

During thie February "Turning the Tables on Hunger" Food drive, Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church collected 1,650 lbs. of canned and packaged food for the more than 1,200 individuals and families served by Sunnyvale Community Services. Along with everything else they brought in, was 672 cans, boxes and bags of soup and soup mix for Souper Bowl Sunday!  In the first two months of 2008 they have collected 3,370 lbs. of food. Since they began their food collection more than 5 years ago, they have donated 90,608 lbs. of food or 45 TONS (the size of two killer whales)! 

4”x6” photos of all 1,000 children  adopted by church members and staff  are displayed in church entry.

Milpitas Church

Adopts 1,000 Children!

The p ictures at the left are amazing: 1,000 4”x6” snapshots of children from Mexico, Central and South America, Asia, and Africa, all adopted by members and staff of Christ Community Church (our Presbyterian Church in Milpitas) through Compassion, International (www.compassion.com). The child adoptions in developing countries (and visits to the agencies that care for them) is just part of the International Mission program at the church.

JOTTINGS FROM JUDI POGUE - 2008 #1

PDA Volunteer  Judi Pogue at Volunteer Village, 2007

Gulfport, Mississippi-January 20, 2008 

I’ve just completed my first week here as the Interim Volunteer Village Coordinator, and once again; I have seen some amazing people with a real passion for mission. Some of their stories will be part of future jottings, but first, I want to answer some of the questions that people asked as I was preparing to come here.

Is there any progress? Yes, I have seen some progress since my visits here in 2006 and 2007. The Gulfport Airport, at which I arrived on a beautiful sunny afternoon last Sunday, is no longer a maze of temporary walls with blue tarps draped here and there. The terminal is as complete as any airport terminal in the U.S. Are there terminals anywhere that are truly complete?

Driving on Interstate 10 through New Orleans, I saw new buildings, renovated and open apartment complexes, areas that have been leveled to prepare for new construction. However, the sign for Lakeview Medical Plaza is still askew with no signs of redevelopment in that “plaza.”

Our work teams are all involved in reconstruction. A number of houses have been finished and the owners are living in them.

Will it be back ever be as it was before? I’m not sure that will ever happen. Mississippi has made quite a bit of progress toward reestablishing business and putting people back in their homes. I visited two houses that volunteers from the village in Gautier have been working on. Both houses had three feet of water in them after the storm, which meant that the owners lost virtually everything—appliances, furniture clothing. One resident is still living in a FEMA trailer. The Worksite Assignment Manager from Gautier, a recent graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio, talked with the owner about the jobs the next volunteers will be working on. These included finishing the floors, completing work in a bathroom, and installing the new refrigerator that the previous volunteer team had purchased for the home.

The second owners have moved into their as yet unfinished house. They owned the trailer that they have lived in since the storm, and I could see where it sat in the front yard. A front yard that the owner told me had a big rose garden before Katrina. The kitchen was scheduled to have tile laid when the next volunteers come there.

Jackson County, MS, which is where Gautier and Pascagoula are located, has an agency called Rebuild Jackson County. That agency does case management, so people in need can come there and be referred to the appropriate recovery agency. The case managers, who have screened the homeowners to be sure they legitimately merit the assistance of the PDA volunteers, are always happy to see the managers of the Gautier Village. Their appearance means another home will begin to be rebuilt.

PRESBYTERIAN DISASTER ASSISTANCE SEEKS

LONG-TERM VOLUNTEERS TO SUPPORT HURRICANE KATRINA AND RITA RECOVERY WORK

Volunteer teams from across the nation continue to travel to Mississippi and Louisiana to put in hours of work reconstructing the homes laid waste by the two major hurricanes of 2005. During mission trips that last from two to six days, these volunteers are housed at six villages that have been set up along the Gulf Coast by the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) and its long-term volunteers.

Long-term volunteers come predominately from the ranks of the retired or from the ranks of students on break, new college graduates and other young people seeking to find a meaningful way to begin their work lives. But there are business owners who put the business on hold for a few months or workers whose employers provide leave time for service work, who have found this kind of service fulfilling. These individuals spend from two months to two years managing and/or maintaining the villages, directing the work of short-term volunteers and meeting with homeowners who need help in rebuilding their homes.

Currently, PDA is seeking applicants to serve for two or more months as Village Managers and Worksite Assignment Managers. Volunteers are provided a place to live and their meals along with a small per diem. Transportation costs to and from the Gulf Coast are reimbursed. To find out more about these opportunities go to this website www.pcusa.org/pda/help.htm and scroll down to Make Work a Witness.

Presbyterian

Disaster

Assistance

www.pcusa.org/pda/

Trinity San Jose Young Adult Headed to Africa

Ryan Tally, assistant Director of Youth at Trinity San Jose and a Sophomore at West Valley College, is off on a three-week PC USA-led traveling seminar on “HIV/AIDS in Africa: A time of Hope and Challenge” to South Africa, Malawi and Uganda in late February.